The Borrowers

Introduction

Written by British author Mary Norton in 1952, The Borrowers is the first in a five-part series along with The Borrowers Afield (1955), The Borrowers Afloat (1959), The Borrowers Aloft (1961), and The Borrowers Avenged (1982). The book follows the story of the Clock family, a trio of tiny people who live beneath the kitchen floorboards in a large house in the British countryside.

Norton was born in London in 1903 and grew up in Leighton Buzzard, the small town near where The Borrowers takes place. She began writing children’s fiction during World War II. Along with The Borrowers series, she also wrote The Magic Bed Knob; or, How to Become a Witch in Ten Easy Lessons and Bonfires and Broomsticks, which were made into the 1971 Disney movies Bedknobs and Broomsticks as well as Are All the Giants Dead?

The Borrowers books are Norton’s best-known works and have earned quite a bit of recognition over the years. The Borrowers won the Carnegie Medal in 1952, a prize for the best children’s book by a British author. The books have also been adapted into several theatrical productions and a number of TV shows and movies, including a 1992 television miniseries starring Ian Holm, a 2010 Japanese animated movie called The Secret World of Arrietty by Studio Ghibli, and the 2011 film The Borrowers.

This guide refers to the 1969 Scholastic Book Services edition of The Borrowers.

Plot Summary

The Borrowers begins by introducing Mrs. May, a human woman who is the sister of “the boy” who claimed to have seen the Borrowers as a child. In the opening scene, she is crocheting with young Kate, and when Kate realizes her crochet hook is missing, Mrs. May wonders whether the Borrowers took it. This prompts Kate to ask for clarification, and Mrs. May launches into a story that makes up the bulk of the novel.

Many years earlier, Mrs. May’s brother is sent to his Great Aunt Sophy’s house, an old mansion in the countryside, to recover from an illness before returning to his family in India. One day, he notices a tiny man sliding down a curtain and carrying a doll-sized teacup. The man is Pod Clock, a “Borrower” who is also husband to Homily and father to Arrietty. The Clock family are fearful that being “seen” means they will have to leave the house, for in their minds, being seen by humans automatically exposes them to many dangers. Their family history is full of such mishaps; for example, Pod’s brother Hendreary was seen many years ago by the humans, and years later, the household cat was believed to have eaten Hendreary’s daughter. Despite such dangers, the Clock family decides to stay in the house but concludes that Arrietty should learn how to “borrow” supplies from the human household so that she will learn more about the world and thus avoid her cousin’s fate.

On Arrietty’s first borrowing expedition, she is not only seen by the boy but also talks to him and asks him to take a letter to her uncle. At first, she does not tell her parents about the encounter, but they eventually find out when she sneaks out of their hole to visit the boy and find out whether he has received a response to the letter. At first, Pod and Homily are terrified, but they soon learn to trust and even like the boy, who brings them dollhouse furniture on a nightly basis. This arrangement works out well for a while; the Clocks have easy access to everything they need through the boy, and the boy and Arrietty develop a friendship.

One day, everything is disrupted when the evil cook, Mrs. Driver, discovers the Borrowers’ home beneath the kitchen floor. Although the other adults barely believe her story, she calls for the rat catcher, who swears to smoke the Borrowers out of their home and feed them to his terriers. Fortunately, the boy comes to the Clock family’s rescue by stealing a pickaxe and tearing away an outside grate that leads to the Clocks’ home. He never sees Pod, Homily, or Arrietty again, but a while later, the young Mrs. May visits the house and finds evidence that the Clocks escaped and were able to make a home in a badger den with Pod’s brother.